The August 2023 Active ISK Delta: EVE Is Not Dead Yet

CCP published EVE Online's monthly economic report for August 2023 this morning. Lately I have concentrated on the Active ISK Delta, the amount of in-game currency the New Eden money supply changes due to players leaving and coming back to the game. August traditionally is a month where players take a break and do other things. But the value of the Active ISK Delta for August was 43.1 trillion ISK. Positive ISK values indicate players returning to the game, not ceasing to play.

Over the last 4 months, the Active ISK Delta has only declined by 34.1 trillion ISK. Over the same four months in 2022 the combined Active ISK Delta was 144.8 trillion ISK. In 2022, which witnessed a great deal of player discontent due to talk of introducing NFTs and blockchain technology to the game followed by a 33% subscription price increase, the Active ISK Delta for the first 8 months was -265.8 trillion. In the first 8 months of 2023, the amount of decrease was 104 trillion ISK.

Why the increase in August? I'm not sure. The cause isn't increased PvP in low sec, as the 177,992 player ships destroyed in the security band was the first time 200,000 ships were not destroyed since before the Uprising expansion launched in November 2022.

The three big events in August were changes to factional warfare and Homefront Operations at the beginning of the month and EVE Operation: Epiphany in mid-to-late August. The Jove still have a hold on the imagination of EVE players even years after the Jove exited the cluster and left the Society of Conscious Thought in charge of their interests.

Looking at Jester's average concurrent users graph shows the increase in the Active ISK Delta possibly the result of a promotion. From 11 to 20 August CCP offered 10 days of Omega time for 10 PLEX. The ACU jumped around that time, so the impact can't be dismissed. But perhaps impressively, the ACU in August 2023 was 18-20% higher than in August 2022.

So whatever the reason, the boost from the Uprising expansion has not gone away. And two months after the Viridian expansion dropped on Tranquility we are seeing little to no decrease during a period which historically sees players disengage from the game. EVE may be dying, but the game is not dead yet.